Where will computing go from here?

Have you ever considered, or are you even old enough to care, where computing has been and where it is headed? A loaded question? You betcha!

I come from a generation that grew up with the first computers. No, not PCs. They didn't exist yet. Some of the first computers, just being built when I was a kid, could fill your garage. Typically, in the early days, there was no way to communicate with it or load programs without using toggle switches or other devices like mag tape or punch card readers. All foreign concepts to the current generations.

Eventually something called dumb terminals came to be and these screen-keyboard combos started a rapport with the operating system of the main computer, some might say the 'mainframe'. Simple ASCII character string communications travelled over RS-232 cables to a switchbox near the mainframe. These evolved somewhat and served industry, especially the big banks, quite well.

Huge companies like IBM and CDC and Honeywell built monolithic mainframes and competed for banking and research dollars. Other vendors like Digital Equipment, Tandem, Hewlett Packard and more sprouted up with things called mini-computers.These were the results of advancements in miniaturization and the basic word size with processors and the assembly languages inherent in them. Still the dumb terminals remained.

Suddenly Personal Computers came onto the market aided by an operating system inventor by the name of Bill Gates who devised MS-DOS. About the same time the RS-232 cabling was replaced by Local Area Networks coined with the name Ethernet. Speeds increased and computers were sharing information among themselves, but something centralized was called for. The mainframes gave way, in certain instances, to smaller servers (of information). Even still the servers could also communicate with a mainframe if necessary.

OK, we'll jump ahead a bit, I'm bored too. It's the evolution of the PC that is critical in this discussion. 'Personal' means that local disk storage could help someone personalize their workstation. Give it a look and feel, a number of specialized programs, and even some secrets. Then we got the notebook. Now the individuals could be mobile, and bring their personalizations with them. A new problem arose. We use the desktop for some tasks but the portable/notebook for others. Sharing via the newly popular Internet seemed a likely solution.

Introduce the cel phone. First fairly dumb, it was a phone, after all. Later, it could be personalized, just like a PC. Today these personal smart devices, in so far as they can be carried on one's person, are very powerful, but not in the same way as the PC. The PC gained its power characteristic from having a massive harddrive. Why is this not happening with the smart-phones and tablets of today?

Enter The Cloud. What appears today to be the ultimate personal computing device e.g. smart-phone/tablet will soon be 'dumbed' down dramatically. It will become nothing more that a portal to The Cloud. Everyone will store their information there. The devices themselves will no longer be personal. They will be expendable and replaceable. Don't spend too much on the smartset device. It won't be the smartset thing you do.

The dumb-phones and tablets of the future will be nothing more that conduits to The Cloud! Think ahead.